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My bike tends to drift off the drive line when turning while not pedalling.

How do I compensate? The seller told me it is because my weight is mostly on the back and the front tire is not as weighted.

If I am going straight sometimes it wants to drift off where I am going and afraid I will run into people on the bike trails. It is as if the bike is pulling me off the line.

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    OK so most Day 6 bikes are roughly the same shape, but which model? It would be best to add a few photos of your own bike. But with only 2 wheels, unless something is changing in the balance or steering, there's no turning force, so the first thing I'd be checking for is anything loose Commented Nov 17 at 21:20
  • Check whether the front and rear wheel are aligned with each other and whether the bike goes straight easily when you walk it. You should be able to push the seat, not holding the handlebar at all. Commented Nov 17 at 22:12

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In a word - "geometry"

Most day6 bikes look similar, so I picked a "dream 8" and then drew the head tube and the tyre-ground contact patch.

The difference is called the "trail" and this design appears to have a small distance which leads to the bike "flopping" a bit while riding. As a result you have to actively steer. This would be like a "twitchy" road race bike and less of a "lazy cruiser"

I bet its really hard to walk along with this bike and just push it straight by the seat, with no hands on the handlebars.

Fixes: A smaller front and/or back tyre might provide a very-little benefit. A less-angled fork might help too but that will cost more. Changing wheel size won't help because you have rim brakes and will lead to the pedals striking the ground.

There's almost nothing you can do to the handlebars that will help here. Perhaps holding them toward the ends might give your arms more leverage to hold the bike straight

Aside: The seller is somewhat right about weight distribution. This bike is likely 30% front and 70% rear but that has no significant impact on steering unless you're climbing a grade. This bike could probably ride up a 10% climb before the front wheel gets "lifty"

Your last resort is to on-sell it or return as "unsuitable" if you only just bought it.

Otherwise its a matter of practicing, and perhaps leaning into turns a bit more. Lean 5% further into a bend and see if the bike commits to the turn.

Another slight possibility is tyre pressure. If the tyres are significantly underinflated, they act weird. Try adding ~10 PSI to whatever's in there now and see if it feels a bit better. On a bike like this, 50 PSI would be about the maximum value. The rear can be higher pressure than the front tyre.

An additional thought - you might benefit from a "steering damper" which is sometimes found on cargo bikes or sometimes commuters.

enter image description here

These work by gently nudging the fork back to straight, correcting a slight tendancy to curve. However they don't steer your bike straight down the path. It might help, they're relatively cheap at 15 euros, example https://www.bike24.com/p2129973.html

The idea of a "straighter" fork could be helpful too, but it will also raise the front of the bike a little. Here's a mockup showing the increase in trail by swapping fork to a straighter one. The Purple lines show the new trail, which is a good thing:

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Most of the bike won't care. Your saddle will have a slight more tilt, and the kick stand has a couple millimetres further to go. Both are adjustable.

Finding a straighter fork to fit your bike, and actually fitting it, that's going to have a cost, and if you're not confident with tools then would have to be a bike shop job.

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    The large rake and slack head tube angle both cause and disguise (until you drew lines on it) the unusually small trail. The fork was obviously a conscious design choice, but seems like a strange one Commented Nov 18 at 7:31
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    I think you might be right, because designing from the ground up with the wheel size in the picture, you could make the downtube steeper, so the bottom steerer bearing could be higher, and with it the fork crown. Then you could use a normal fork Commented Nov 18 at 11:36
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    that was super helpful yes it does it more on a fairly steep incline, practice is what I will have to do, he did tell me that the front is lighter hence it is not as grounded, also i had him put fat tires on them 2.90 inche I think. anyway thanks for the detailed reply. Commented Nov 18 at 11:45
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    With fat tyres, you might need to play with the pressures of them independently. It's possible the front is too hard, which can make it lose grip over bumps. You can also try shifting some load forwards, onto a front rack or (less usefully with weight limits and that rake) a handlebar bag. Commented Nov 18 at 16:45
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    You were right I had to tilt the bike a little in direction I want to be it did drift I was able to corrected quickly it was empowering and yes pedaling while correcting drift gave more control so since I cannot ride a regular bike I will be keeping it now that I understand whys and were fores thank you for your help Commented Nov 20 at 20:12

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